1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method of controlling the power consumption of a mobile communication terminal, and a mobile communication terminal implementing the same, more particularly, to a method of controlling the power consumption of a mobile communication terminal, which measures power consumed in the mobile communication terminal provided with a diversity unit for implementing a diversity function, and controls the power consumption of peripheral devices, such as a speaker and a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), and a mobile communication terminal implementing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a mobile communication terminal has gradually become small due to the high sensitivity, compactness and light weight of electronic components, and the functions become diverse to fulfill customers' demand. For example, a mobile communication terminal provided with various functions, such as games, Internet search, the reception and transmission of electronic (e)-mail, and the payment of bill, has been popularized. Also recently, a mobile communication terminal, which functions not only as a camera phone that is provided with a camera allowing the capture of objects, but also as a video mobile communication terminal that captures images and transmits the captured images to another person, is being commercialized.
A conventional mobile communication terminal employs a technology for measuring total average consumed power therein, and controlling the power consumption of peripheral devices, such as a speaker, an LCD and a camera, based on the measurement result For example, when total power consumed increases, the power consumption of the peripheral devices, such as a speaker, an LCD and a camera, is lowered, or the function of the speaker is deactivated, so that the power consumption of the peripheral devices can be reduced, which will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings below.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the internal construction of a conventional mobile communication terminal. In FIG. 1, a power measurement unit 300 measures power consumed in the terminal. A control unit 200 reads the consumed power from the power measurement unit 300, and controls the power consumption of peripheral devices 100 based on the amount of the measured consumed power.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling power consumption in the conventional mobile communication terminal. In the mobile communication terminal, power consumed by the peripheral devices 100 is measured at step S210. Average consumed power is calculated based on the power consumed by the peripheral devices 100 at step S220. The power consumption of the peripheral devices 100 is controlled based on the amount of the average consumed power obtained at step S230. That is, when the average consumed power exceeds a predetermined value, the peripheral devices 100 enter into a power-saving mode, or the brightness of the backlight of the LCD decreases, so that power consumed by the peripheral devices 100 is reduced.
Meanwhile, a diversity function is chiefly used as a method of solving a fading problem on a communication line. For example, two reception antennas are used and, thereby, electric waves are received through two paths, so that fading can be compensated for. That is, the transmission paths of signals are separated according to space, time, or frequency, so that fading can be reduced by comparing two received signals with each other or extracting only appropriate signals from the two received signals.
The mobile communication terminal in which the above described diversity function is implemented, has an advantage in that quality of communication is considerably improved, but has a disadvantage in that the amount of power consumption increases rapidly with communication time and, therefore, the depletion of a battery is faster than that of general mobile communication terminals. Unfortunately, a technology for controlling power consumption in a mobile communication terminal to which diversity is applied has not yet been proposed.